The monograph edited by D. Suba Chandran and Sonali Huria, is a culmination of a roundtable organized by the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, supported by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAF) in May 2008 in Goa, to deliberate the issue over a two-day conference.

The conference was attended by eminent Indians who have deliberated on these issues and other distinguished guests from Southeast Asia including scholars, analysts, policy advisors, journalists, and country and regional representatives of KAF. Initial remarks were made by Indian presenters about the Indian experience, followed by detailed discussions on various dimensions of the rise of radical Islam.

The 2008 roundtable was in continuation of a study undertaken by the IPCS in 2007 examining the linkages between Islam and international terrorism and Indian democracy as a moderating influence on Muslims in the country which has prevented them from seeking recourse to radical Islam.

The monograph broadly addresses the following key issues:

Radical Islam: Indian Democracy as a Moderating Factor: Presentation of the IPCS-KAF study

Secular and Democratic Constitution: Its Significance in a Heterogeneous Society

Safeguarding Minority Rights: Judiciary & the Rule of Law

Pluralism, Equality, Civil Society and the Media

Nature of Islam: Strengthening the Moderates and Resisting the Radicals

Lessons, Challenges and Opportunities: The Road Ahead

Note on the Editors

D. Suba Chandran is the Deputy Director at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), New Delhi. His primary areas of research interest include Pakistan's internal security, in particular Balochistan and FATA. He also works on Jammu & Kashmir. Until recently, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Regional Studies in University of Jammu, J&K. He is the Consulting Editor of a monthly magazine Epilogue, published from J&K. He is also Associate Editor of an online weekly – Kashmir Perspective. He co-edits the annual Armed Conflictsin South Asia, published by Routledge. Earlier he was a Visiting Fellow, Department of Peace Studies, University of Bradford, UK and ACDIS, University of Urbana-Champaign.

Sonali Huria is a Research Officer at the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies (IPCS), New Delhi. She holds an M.Phil. Degree from the University of Delhi and her M.Phil. Dissertation was titled "Demystifying the New 'Military Humanism': America's Military Interventions Post-Cold War". She is presently working on a study of 'Failed States in South Asia' at the IPCS.